40 DISCO VERY OF LAKE NGAMI. 



first essays at war, made their bows of the Pabpa Christy 

 arid, when these broke, they gave up fighting altogether. 

 They have invariably submitted to the rule of every horde 

 which has overrun the countries adjacent to the rivers on 

 which they specially love to dwell. They are thus the 

 Quakers of the body politic in Africa. 



Twelve days after our departure from the wagons at 

 Ngabisane we came to the northeast end of Lake Ngami ; 

 and on the 1st of August, 1849, we went down together to 

 the broad part, and, for the first time, this fine-looking 

 sheet of water was beheld by Europeans. The direction 

 of the lake seemed to be N.N.E. and S.S.W. by compass. 

 The southern portion is said to bend round to the west, and 

 to receive the Teoughe from the north at its northwest 

 extremity. We could detect no horizon where we stood 

 looking S.S.W., nor could we form any idea of the extent 

 of the lake, except from the reports of the inhabitants of 

 the district; and, as they professed to go round it in three 

 days, allowing twenty-five miles a day would make it 

 seventy-five, or less than seventy geographical miles in cir- 

 cumference. Other guesses have been made since as to its 

 circumference, ranging between seventy and one hundred 

 miles. It is shallow, for I subsequently saw a native punt- 

 ing his canoe over se*ven or eight miles of the northeast 

 end ; it can never, therefore, be of much value as a com- 

 mercial highway. In fact, during the months preceding 

 the annual supply of water from the north, the lake is so 

 shallow that it is with difficulty cattle can approach the 

 water through the boggy, reedy banks. These are low on 

 all sides, but on the west there is a space devoid of trees, 

 showing that the waters have retired thence at no very 

 ancient date. This is another of the proofs of desiccation 

 met with so abundantly throughout the whole country. A 

 number of dead trees lie on this space, some of them em- 

 bedded in the mud, right in the water. "We were informed 

 by the Bayeiye, who live on the lake, that when the annual 

 inundation begins, not only trees of great size, but ante- 



